Tony Abbott
says he and his government have not presented a tough budget because they are “somehow political sadomasochists" but because it is absolutely necessary for Australians’ long-term welfare.

Yet there’s a vast ocean of political opportunism to traverse between the obvious pain for the community and the supposed pay-off to come.

As the government struggles to make headway with its message and its policies, it is being buffeted on all sides.

A combination of Labor, the Greens and now the Palmer United Party is busily being much holier than thou, Tony.

The (permanently outraged) states are simultaneously insisting they must keep every dollar promised by a Labor government that knew it wouldn’t be around when the bill comes due in several years.

Not that even this is quite the sure thing it might have seemed last September.

The community seems mightily unimpressed by the government’s argument there is no choice but to make major changes.

The Coalition plan was always that voters would hate the budget but grudgingly accept it was in the national interest – and be ready to forgive if not quite forget by the next election. That’s looking a rather optimistic scenario.

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It’s not just that nearly two-thirds of voters describe the budget as unfair, according to the latest Fairfax/Nielsen poll, and three-quarters of people believe they will be worse off.

It’s also that a narrow majority (53 per cent) think the budget is bad for Australia and the country is evenly split on whether or not it’s economically responsible.

Lead in battle

That makes it even more urgent for the government to try to take the lead in the political battle over what constitutes sound economic management.

The trouble is that the Coalition has years of catch-up to do in persuading the community that talking about cutting spending isn’t just a nice theory. That commitment comes with big financial hooks, particularly in a new government’s first budget. No one much likes the result.

It’s not as if anyone else is suggesting a viable alternative, of course.

Instead, the debate is all about the need to maintain or increase government spending. Just with no new taxes, no new cuts, no fingerprints at all – a wonderful political sleight of hand.

Actually, that’s not quite right.

The Greens do, as usual, want to spend lots and lots more paid for, as usual, by raising taxes on the rich and on business – except, apparently, for the new “levy" on high-income earners because it’s not permanent. Labor is basically arguing there’s no budget problem, so why be mean and nasty?

Clive Palmer just wants to promise whatever it is that will make him and his money more popular with a sizeable minority of disillusioned voters.

It’s all enough to do any economist’s head in. More important, it becomes politically toxic when a government is unable to get much of its budget agenda passed.

Abbott still made an error in instantly raising the notion of an early election if the Senate makes it almost impossible to deliver the budget – as seems likely given Palmer’s version of negotiations.

Even if the Prime Minister now insists he expects the election to be in 2016, the constant talk of a double dissolution compounds the image of a government becalmed rather than firmly set on a clear direction.

Prevent a crisis

But in the Howard era, a Coalition government was mostly negotiating with the Democrats – exemplars of rationality by comparison with those holding the balance of power in the Senate both before and after July 1.

So Abbott and
Joe Hockey
and nervous Coalition backbenchers must keep reiterating why the country can’t continue to allow spending to outpace revenue and why taking preventative actions now will prevent a crisis later.

That may all sound calmly logical. But by attempting to spread the burden and be “fair", the government has only guaranteed an even broader array of opponents.

And to have taken on fights that are unnecessary in terms of timing when it already has so much else on.

Surely, the announcement on raising the pension age to 70 by 2035 could have been postponed while bringing on a future funding brawl with the states didn’t need to be quite so central to this budget.

The political risk is those voters still open to argument will be more easily persuaded by the intensity of the criticism than by the belated tough love rhetoric of the Coalition over the next few weeks and months.

As part of my own highly scientific polling technique, for example, I sought the opinion of my 30-year-old hairdresser. She has two small children, a carpenter husband and works part time. The family is renting and keen to save money for a deposit if overwhelmed by the cost.

Yet her major concern about budget fairness was raising the pension age to 70.

She was relaxed about cuts to family tax payments, partly because she said she didn’t trust the programs after having to pay back $1500 after inadvertent overpayment last year, and she didn’t mind the earn-or-learn motto for the unemployed.

She accepted a $7 co-payment for a GP visit but was suspicious it would soon rise, and lamented the lack of affordable childcare while, in her view, the government was giving $50,000 in parental leave to rich women.

It’s one face of modern Australia Abbott can’t afford to lose. He’ll have to paddle a lot farther and faster.